Session Tracker Freebie

Fahhh!  the Quantum Ogre has attacked!  This blog's updates are coming more slowly and less accurately than before... For which I am not expressing guilt - my hobby/gaming is as regular on the DM end as ever, and furthermore as my other awesome blog shows, I am productive after a fashion and keeping it on the learning end and having fun.  But traditional Fantasy/Sci-Fi Dungeon Crawling gaming (as a genre or mode) is becoming less central and more like the sprinkles on a really fun donut LIKE THIS ONE

AS I WAS SAYING that encompasses a lot of hands on and cerebral and social stuff for me.  I regularly run games, but rarely play. Not for lack of interest but when the building of a hive city in my basement and making and painting the inhabitants is the thing, then it must come after family life and leave narrow margins for other things. And of course I prefer to run games more than play on the PC side, these days.  Not because my Hangout community peers aren't great but...  I don't know. I don't see a great number of games I'm interested in playing in for some reason. I think Dave Y.'s introduction to In A Wicked Age really blew the doors off for me.  I think probably Camp Nerdly is a turning point and as my kid gets older and the wife is more into it, I think I'll try to do it more.

Anyways, I MADE THIS. It's a tracking sheet and fairly useful for the kind of game I usually run.  I try to refer to PCs and henchies by name - maybe it helps immersion, I don't know.  GLAMROD THE ELF, WHAT ARE YOU DOING NOW?  BEWARE THE SACRILEGE!  We all have a little thing we do like this to keep our SAN score up; its use ought to be fairly self-evident. I think when I ran barrowmaze, like 95 percent of the games conformed to this sort of format.  Maybe that's why I am running out of steam on this end for gaming of a particular type.  It seems like all games I've played or run or seen sort of go like this...  Not that it's bad - I always have fun and I think the players do, too.  One little tool in your box of stuffs; surely it's been done and like HEY MAN IF IT MAKES IT EASIER THEN GOOD

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8k5lj5mVs3lT0RCNzU3NE5IQTA

Experiment Success

The Progenitor, Patriarch/Broodlord of the Taint Cola Company

So, I consider the dual-priming method a pretty fun success.  I highly encourage your use of it, if you like easy and handsome results.  I'm happy with my previous attempts at Genestealers, but this new way makes interesting things happen on the model that you might appreciate, too.  Namely, for little in the way of work, you get nice highlights and lowlights (midtones not so great, maybe) and you can embellish those with your style of washes and highlights as you like.  All you need to do is start with black and white primers, then thin down your paints to a glaze, and then off you go.  When the Progenitor's base is done, I will put up a decent pick of him and his scuttling crew.

Observe the differences between the classic Genestealer below left, and her sister to the right, who has been dual-primed.  I like the starker claws on the left but that's about it.  I had serious trouble drybrushing the ridges etc. after priming the model black.  There just wasn't any place to put color on after that.  However, the crevices and lowlights are nicer, maybe.  I'm growing more comfortable with good consistent ink washes and glazes, now, but it's still not something I'm very good at eyeballing.

Anyway, now to finish these and base them as best as I am able... My back is wildly off kilter, and I may save painting and hobbies for tomorrow and just go watch some scary ass movies, instead.

Old-Way of Painting (Left) vs. Dual-Primed Highlight Method

Dual-Primed Genestealers

I'm going slowly on the Cult of Taint Soda, so to speak, but the objects of affection (The Genestealers) are coming along pretty swimmingly.

Trying this dual-priming/pre-shading method I learned from here:

http://www.corehammer.com/painting-classic-genestealers-quickly/

And I like the results enough to keep it up. It seems to me that all the painting I do is a "cheat" somehow but I maybe that's part of the hobby for me. Watching the dry-brushing work, watching the hacking of minis come together.

Beating the system with a subversion

Anyways, we'll see how it goes.

DIY Terrain Progress

I stayed up late last night, again, noodling around and trying things out.  Hot glue was flying and I moved forward with the dual-generators-made-from-kid's-toys. Suitably greebled up and going to flock with some kitty litter/sand/tea combo. I think I will need some matte black spray before I proceed, and maybe a file or something to smooth the edges of the laminate base.  I'll post pictures of that when it's primed and ready.  Meanwhile some shack/platform (shackform?) and a big ass Pthalo Green wall.  These are odd sizes - 2x4's are actually 3 and 3/4 by 1 and 3/4 inches.  Imagine both these puppies liberally slathered in laser-burn, Imperialist Propaganda, and bullet holes.

Also, I've had this Imperial Preacher primed and waiting for paint for maybe 5 years (possibly longer!) and only just late last night got around to sorting him out. My impulse is to use too much wash and I often muddy everything up with one coat too much.  I'll need to sit on it for a little longer and see; maybe I will go back and glaze the shoulder portion of his habit again to get it a little more pink.  Still sorting out skin tones and eyes (after 20 years of painting I know now why I prefer dry-brushed Space Marines. Although I enjoy paining figs I'm not necessarily technically skilled or aesthetically a natural and it takes enough work and patience that I find it aversive sometimes. My eyes don't work like they used too, either...  I have a serious urge to dumpster-dive at work and bring home a dead laser printer to raid its guts.  MUST RESIST.  Just now I found that water has damaged my copy of Space Hulk (well, the components look pretty good but the box has some water damage and appears to have harbored some heretical beetles).  Time to paint all those GS and Termies.  It occurred to me during a brief moment of acrylic-driven clarity that I have a great number of Termies and never field them.  Do I feel like they are cheating, or something?  Gosh, I don't know.  Way back, I think, I always viewed that guy - the one with a jillion termies - as kind of a goat fucker, but now I think it's a matter of inflation and my sins of old are mere pecadilloes.

next: prepping the platforms and gantries 

The Papodiles of Awz

Papists!  We all Hate 'Em.  Amiright?

I'll say again that the spirit of the Baum Oz books ought to, by rights, pervade all our DnD'ing.  So the kicker is that we needed some stuff for a nasty Oz-flavored thing in which to express our IT GETS WORSE motif.  It was good times.

+Evan Lindsey and +Bryan Mullins as Billy Buttons the Blunderbussing 10-year old, and Ransom Calabash, a inexpertly glued together victim of the 1000-yards of Verdun.  He went starkers as a melodic spell was cast at him and literally fell to pieces and was pitched off a cliff.

1) Howell, the Tattered Woggle Bug Sangrita Blast Salesman
2) a Half Dozen Minus One Irritable Kalidahs
3) Miss Petunia, the Buff Orpington Photographer
4) The Black Carniv'rous Heliotrope
5) Whistler, the Shrunken Apple Headed King of the Western Orchard Lands

A thing which the Internet gave us but which sadly we could not use owing to time constraints and the limitations of my frail human frame was the above, the Papodiles.  Behold, their Toothy Mitermaws!  Their babbling Proselyzations (SAN damage) and in other systems we determined that you can take damage depending upon your alignment, but I was thinking that if (for example) your SAN or your Willpower ran out, then of course you'd be Catholic and convert and just go on your merry way to play out whatever Catholicism means to you.  Not as a spiteful thing, mind you, but in the spirit of the times of Baum and Nast (so like maybe a little spiteful since they weren't enlighten'd then as we are, now).

I'm going to say in the interests of hot social commentary that these Ravenous Beasts are amphibian, Lawful Evil, and they horde gold and unread bibles at the bottom of their murky lairs, and they especially love to prey upon the poor, the young, the winsome, and that all three qualities in a single individual (e.g. Master Buttons, above) draws them as a moth to the proverbial thing-which-yeah.

I don't know, 4HD or something, 3 x bite (1d8), droning preaching (DC 15 Save or stop and listen closely, then a DC 15 Save or switch to Catholicism/Law OR take metaphysical damage each round, with +1D damage for non-Lawful characters)

in Into the Odd, pretty easy to stat out.  15 HP, 2 Armor, the attacks are pretty straightforward as 1d6 or 1d12 if the victim is forced to listen to the spiel.  A failed save means the victim takes (in our little game tonight) 1d8 SAN damage in addition to HP loss when the droning, Latinate chanting begins.

RRAAAAARRRGHLAAG PLEASE TURN TO GOSPEL OF ST ROCH CHAPTER 4 VERSE 73, AND LO, JUDAS ISCARIOT WENT UNTO ANTIOCH AND MADE WAR UPON THE DAUGHTERS CHOMP CHOMP WAGNAGHL OF NAPTHALENE AND YEA VERILY BLAH BLAH BLAH IN NOMINE PATRI ET SPIRITU BAALZEBOOOV FEAR NOT FOR THE END IS NIGH AND REPENT REPENT REPENT GIVE UNTO US WHAT IS CAESAR'S AAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHH SNICKERSNACK

And with the firey eyes and the chomping of glistening golden vorpal miter-teeth and then you are dragged below to do penance and never receive charity

Game Table Hijinks and Green Stuff

My buddy Doug from Miami showed up this weekend on a lark; it was good to see him. In addition to minor progress on the honey-dew list, we did a stop motion thing on the game table using my DA and  IG and it was a good time. Observe:

Also, learning is great. I read about green stuff and superglue making for easier to pose and more dynamic models, and it's been pretty cool to play with it.  In addition to this cool Chaos Land Raider Thing, I want to do some Space Marine Breaching Team Unit with non-stock GW models, and maybe a counts-as-Telion Scout Sergeant, on loan from another Chapter. (edit: he's the guy on the right, below). Maybe break down these old Gold Terminators I have and revamp them as characters.

Work on the table (i.e. terrain) proceeds slowly. I need to get some flat gray or black primer, since all the spray paint I have is taking a crap on me, lately.  Fouled nozzles etc.

Death, We Defy Thee

(For Alex's consideration)

Following up - I thought Wayne R. Had preempted my post with this thing here:

http://initiativeone.blogspot.com/2014/07/better-living-through-clones-death-and.html

But it's a good review of exactly the kind is thing I want to avoid.  So, as discussed in my previous thing - this admirable little Oz game posits No Death right up front, for the PCs or the NPCs.  I think that's amazing way to look at play - it hearkens to childlike fantasizing that gives rise to the more complex forms of gaming we all love.

(I never finished this and it was in drafts but a recent thread by Alex prompted me to hang it out)

STC: Hive Terrain from Dimensional Lumber pt I

Okay -

Process is pretty well considered, and the wood is cut. I'm trying to build a good deal of cheap terrain out of dimensional lumber and stuff I have just laying around. I use laminate flooring for the platforms, plus whatever plastic lids turn up.  And junk. Heavy sprinkling of junk.  The laminate is 1/4" by 8" by 48", but it's got these notches on the sides to slip it together, so I chopped that out. If I were cleverer, I'd have found a way to include it in the design but so it goes.  To keep the decks at the standard Necromunda height of 3 inches, I just gotta cut it all to 2 and 3/4" and also 5-3/4" lengths. I'm shooting for at least a few platforms that can be taken apart and held together with either magnets or screws, and stuck in a box for storage and multiple configurations.

Today with a couple of precious minutes before work sans my juve and Gang Leader, I turned a bunch of trash wood from under my porch (and some scraps from the futon-turned-game table) into this:

Which will have a little more panache than this'n Nintendo-cartridge-on-the-half-shell bolted onto a hacked up 4 by 4 (like so):

Although, to be completely fair the entire process of mashing the junk together was fun beyond recounting.  I woulda painted it tonight, but frankly I'm beat. Watched Real Detective, instead.

The gunner's nest looks like this when primed with Krylon:

You can see where the mold release or whatever caused the spray paint to shrink back.  I don't think it'll negatively impact the thing very much.  Lastly, the 4x4 with plastic top and metal sides after a coating of Krylon enamel (bear in mind that although I think about these issues a good deal it's a process of discovery and improv more than anything else):

You could totally beat a Genestealer to death with this thing. It's like S7 AP3 and it confers Dubious Egress to any units that start the turn on it.  You'll need to buy the dataslate to have access to those rules.

Tomorrow I will maybe fiddle with the bases and platforms and work out a magnet system... Flush-mounted neodymium in the tops of the supports and washers underneath the platforms?  Possibly reversible?  See where I'm going with this?  I trimmed the 8' lengths of laminate flooring down to 7' square, and so maybe that's a weird number. I don't know how it will work out yet, but the good thing is if I use wing nuts or magnets, nothing will be set in stone!

And don't forget to remind me to explain my thinking on ubiquitous hazard stripes and whether it's worth it to paint them by hand...  With the thing I'm thinking of they'll be all over everything.

EDIT: I thought I was all clever and searched it up on google and somebody didn't just beat me to the proverbial one-two, but they also used LASERS

DAMMIT

http://www.back2base-ix.com/index.php?_a=viewCat&catId=70

Rogue Trader Era Vortex Weapons Et Cetera

I have never ever used these in a game, although they captured my attention back in the late 1980s. Looking at a copy  of RT the other day, the rules in there are fun.   In retrospect, the thing almost seems iconic, like Jokaero Digital Weapons and those crazy fat Marines and bulbous Tyranids.  And Ambulls.  And Sand Clams.  I mean, what's not to like?  A bomb that makes razorwire!  A grav-tank from a deodorant stick!  It would even smell manly, except for all the craft-ichlorians!

New Arrival, Spanner-Brother Norrin.  He's in the dip, awaiting colour reassignment.

I don't know about the most recent Vortex stuff; I guess there's a dataslate and it's given a treatment in the Fortress Assault rule book, maybe.  I saw a copy of that the other day and it was cool, but essentially a catalog of the dreary skulls and arches terrain.  Don't get me wrong, I like that stuff, but I'm seeing now why people call it 40K$.  A 'D' template weapon as big as a 2-liter bottle of coke, to shoot at your stomping Knight and make all the little guys irrelevant.

Back to the subject, it seems to me like you'd need a couple of turns worth of trenches, a 3 inch blast marker, and a ping pong ball on a base. Could be a fun thing to scratch build. I'll need to think on it for a spell.  I already envision how to paint and base it, with one of those dumb electronic tea lights.  It's going to be freakin' sweet.

Also, I'm done buying new GW stuff, and done hunting it up on eBay. Aside from Spanner-Brother Norrin up above, I am losing my interest in collecting. I got sniped about 4 times for Genestealer Hybrids and a sweet RT dread, and  I think rather than go through the heartache anymore, I will just convert things and make due.  Like, welcome to my table everyone, as long as your shit has a lick of paint then it's all good.

Speaking of making due, I turned a bunch of junk into almost-terrain tonight. Just a couple of hours of greebles-ing and all this junk will be ready for a layer of PVA wash and some spray paint.  I figure two weeks or so and I should have a pretty playable Underhive ready and willing and able.  I had 3 cans of oldish spray paint seize up on me Sunday and so I went into a Red Fugue and slew everyone in this hab-block, but I figure maybe they were just cold or old or both. Like me that morning.

I'm going to add to my list of "must dos" a couple of feet of slimy canals full of purplish goo, a big factorium where the Taint Cola cult can live and brood/breed, some ratty shacks on CD bases, a couple of destroyed corners-from-styrofoam, 1 big- and 2 or 3 medium- dimensional lumber and laminate flooring hive platforms.  The laminate is 8 inches by 48 inches.  I have a lot of cool plans for stackable stuff, so we may see some height in this Hive.  I look forward to slogging some Marines and 'Nids across it.  You can see I have a bit of a new thing for trying to figure out how to convert scraps of dimensional lumber into gaming terrain.  My system isn't close to perfect at the moment, and I never have the time to cut stuff the way I want to (in my brain) so the miter saw sits and sulks and I make due with the stuff I almost threw away from under our deck.  I persevered in the same manner a Hiver wouldn't throw away anything found, and so here:

Is it junk? Terrain? Terrain made from junk? What do these hivers build their homes of, anyhow?

Also, you ought to check out Inquisimunda.  It's the bees knees, and takes the urgent, mixed squads feel I loved about RT and plops it into an Underhive I already love. I dig Inq28, but nobody wants to play on account of ITS A NARRATIVE GAME or something

After I get the table and terrain ready, I think I'm going to learn to sculpt and cast figs. We'll see.

Archaeotech Stash

an old Nintendo cartridge becomes much-needed counters for my tabletop.  I found it on our post-dinner promenade and it was literally, no fooling, in a ditch behind a house near the trail and so

I will use the guts for treasure and the case for shelter.  Ratskins will revere these and guard them from intrepid gangers.

>>>END OF LINE.000A/5<<<

On the Kludging of Terrain

(kiopik7y8ooikoiloloikuiikuiooju

Let it be known that this was from me having brown acrylic paint on my fingers as I typed and then I got it all over the place and those letters are from me wiping it down.)

Ahem.

Got some stuff done, mostly tinkering around with terrain ideas and that kind of thing.  Downloaded some posters and printed them out on this stuff, which is great for literally painting propaganda onto every square inch of your underhive:

Here is a semi-finished minor project, probably a platform to connect with some shady-ass gantry to another shady-ass platform.  The figs look right at home on it, and it's good to see.  Now, only a hundred more like that and I'll be happy happy happy.

Uh, I think everybody ought to have access to the posters 'n' stuff that I found, but part of the process is finding out what works best for you, and maybe I will do up some old vintage ads in the form of GW-universe appropriate stuff.

Here's a great one to get you started and may Bull Gorg hear this being's pleas for mercy when the time is nigh:

http://recalcitrantdaze.blogspot.com/2011/08/propaganda-and-information-posters.html
 
The Emperor Protects!

>>>>END OF LINE<<<<

BONUS

Classic vs Recent Figs

I got a bunch of old Genestealers in the mail from eBay, the kind of thing that I get all twitterpated about since it was such a steal. In went the worst of the bunch into the piney, briny drink to get rid of what appears to have been a coat of light blue Testors or some really thick and chunky acrylic paint.

Some interesting things stand out right away.  These GS are blue-green on the insides; maybe signifying from an old edition of Space Hulk or something, I'm not exactly clear.  Also, I dig the movement of the newer ones but the older ones have a charm and stick out in fun ways (the tail protrudes instead of laying flat against the leg). The older ones are a little chunkier and more compact and have cooler greebles, IMHO

Also, this paint job is probably about on par with what I am able to do a couple years ago without dissemination into my brain-zone of key painting memes, and I actually like the splotchiness of it.

Anyway, probably going to try a black undercoat and hit it with some directional two-tone and a bunch of washes to build it up. I'm a classical, conservative Purist when it comes to coloration on these, as I think I have stated in the past. I might try to give them a little more on-purpose mottling and veins and such.  If I don't paint the 2 catachan squads up as tainted Traitors, then it's going to be all Dug-In Claw-to-Claw action.

Scratchbuilt Terrain and Squads WIP

Some stuff I'm whittling away the time with tonight. I find that painting little metal people and hacking together stuff soothes me in a way that thinking about RPG stuff does not do. Taking pictures of it is fun, also.  Also, I got outbid for a RT-era Furibundus, and I don't think I ought to follow through on it, and pray the Emperor forgives me.  I haven't seen one for sale in a while and probably ought to wrap my head around never fulfilling that teen-me's mission...  A coward dies a thousand thousand deaths, as they say.

First up, Hazmat-Control Scouts for my DA Successor Clan, led by Scout Sergeant Brother Dole and accompanied by Warp-Containment Librarian-in-Training Brother Markov.  Their Scout Armor is shrouded in a protective layer of synth-skin to keep the air inside fresh and pure. Markov has been in training for quite some time and his armour is an old and rarely scene legacy pattern...  He bears the scars of recent psychik surgery and is always in a terrible mood, and prone to issue citations indiscriminately.

Newest old-skool additions to the Brood of Taint Cola, with S&H on eBay, they come to about 1.15 a piece.  To Strip, or just re-prime and start again?

My new policy is, if you end up near a lasgun, take it and shoot something.

New Policy: a liberal sprinkling of lasrifles, goo, and grid-grating.  I made that up.

Grid Grating is some kind of acrylic drywall patching tape, in my case found behind the dryer of the rental.  So free, and keeping with my low-rent style.

Punching out the keys on a flimsy work throw-away.  Makes interesting bits (see below)

A box of keys.  Uh, conduit.  Uh, panels.  Uh, viewscreens.  We'll see.

A gunner's nest, from a paint-drip catcher.  1.98 at Lowe's.

Well, if you're like me then this post has jus' about put you to sleep.  Good Night, and Consume and Obey, Citizen!

"Have you got a permit for that rat-on-a-stick cart, Citizen?  If not, I can issue you a citation and then you'll need to submit to a gene-scan, and so help me if you show any signs of corruption.  Is that a can of Taint you're drinking, there?  Give me two cans, five squigdogs, and a rat-burger.  Okay, looks like your permit's in order.  Move along."

ITS ALIVE

A war-gaming table

A thing I've wanted since maybe 1987

There is one in my basement

She lists like a Dornish lass with a vial of poison and a fever, but...  She's here!

I christen her THE HIVE

Craftsy Stuff for The Emperor

at Michael's today to pick up a hot-wire foam cutter, there's like a steampunk section with gears and skulls and pocket watches.  also, some interesting alcohol inks and weathering stuff - something called a soot weathering kit, which would probably be pretty fun to mess around with.

Anyway, Michaels.  pretty cool angel wing  beads, for some hot Valkyrie Sister action

This is the link to the site:

http://www.timholtz.com/products.html

http://rangerink.com/?product=tim-holtz®-adirondack®-alcohol-inks

and a demo:

http://youtu.be/-KbNWkzZFQg